Month: August 2013

Thought I should share this with my friends, particularly those who have been silent support and who have encouraged me to see my dream as viable. Over years and coming tentatively into the internet, I have received a wonderful gift from people I have never met and probably would never meet. Some I have been able to chat and on very rare occasions even talked with on the phone. However, one of the rarest friends I came across on the net has been a gentleman Daniel Dragomirescu. He went on my blog and saw a poem of mine and liked it enough to invite me to write for his magazine. Contemporary Literary Horizon CLH.

I have the question I have always asked myself. Why do we write? I had naively assumed, writers generally write to change the world. You know be a mirror and show that mirror to the rest of humanity so that when we look in that mirror we may be able to identify what we are, what we stand for and how long we still have to journey to get there.

You might say that was a fair assumption, or am I wrong? I remember my favourite editor stating that we write from our state of maturity and mind. But the question still haunts me, why do I write? Why do writers spend hours of agony, hardwork to write? What would Williams Shakespeare tell me, or Chaucer or Somerset Maugham or Kafka? Those were my heroes. I had a dream that one day sometime in eternity, I might make the grade and write like them and influence generations after me.

I dream dreams. Just like the good book says . Each day, I feel a sense of urgency that I need more time. Suddenly I have a longing to grow old, you know have time to write more stories, share my culture, my sky which may be just as blue as another, the forest haze like any other,pain from my end of the pond feels like pain on ice caps too. Hope is aneutral color and dignity is coin a man earns when he understands he need not bow to the wrong music. How do we know? A writer is social commentator but what does he know.

These are questions that wrack me each time. It was why I wrote Numen Yeye, to reach across to the silent society and hope my roar may be like a squeak from the mouse. Which is why I want to share this dedication on the page of Numen Yeye that Daniel has translated into Romanian and Spanish. I do not speak either of the languages, but Daniel has written it in the language of humanity and from across the pond shook my hand and touched my heart. I stand humbled by his gift and yours too.

Dedication

Love is like a rose

Gerry’s care

in watching Erin

pick her way in creation

like the friendship of Skip Slocum

his keening gift

that heard the echoes

of my dreams

gave name to Numen Yeye.

All that carries gift of Man

may see through

the bandages that clouds our

journeys into matter.

(The translations)

(fViaţa e ca un trandafir

grija lui Gerry

e s-o privească pe Erin

alegându-şi calea în creaţie

ca prietenia lui Skip Slocum

darului său din suflet

care a prins ecouri

din visele mele

i-a dat numele Numen Yeye.

Tot ce poartă darul Omului

se poate vedea în

bandajele care învăluie

drumurile noastre prin materie.

(din volumul Numen Yeye) rom the book Numen Yeye)

La vida es como una rosa

la preocupación de Gerry

es mirar Erin

elegir su camino en la creación

como la amistad de Skip Slocum

su regalo pasionado

que ha retenido ecos

de mis sueños

lo llamó Numen Yeye.

Todo que lleva el regalo del Hombre

puede ser visto en

las vendas que rodean

nuestros caminos a través de la materia.

(del libro Numen Yeye)

Abiola Olatunde (born 1950) is a contemporary poet and journalist from Nigeria. Her poetry is a real ‘arc-en-ciel’ over the whole of humanity, in the name of peace and friendship between cultures, peoples and continents. As writer and journalist, Biola Olatunde strongly promotes cultural and spiritual values from Africa and Nigeria, her country. Since 2009, Biola Olatunde is a constant contributor to Contemporary Literary Horizon magazine.